Rain, rain, will it ever go away? Yes, it will, just not today (and this is my bad rhyme for the morning.)

Speaking of things we want to go away, how about those cicadas? The first reports of those nasty little buggers have come in from the Halifax area in northern Dauphin County, and billions more will join in the fun in the next few days. PennLive will be, as Marcus Schneck dubs, Cicada Central over the next few days. Marcus also plans to share recipes on how to turn these cicadas into a nummy treat. It makes you wonder: do cicadas take like chicken? Or merely just crunchy? I don't care to find out.

However, this weekend does have the Patriot-News and PennLive.com ArtsFest, which is now free. Score! You can save the former $5 entrance fee and spend it at a food vendor there instead. There'll be great art, fantastic music, a film festival, and a wild Julia Hatmaker for you to spot. Plus, the bow tie man will be back, and bow ties are cool! Over on City Island, the Harrisburg Senators will be playing all weekend, and the new Boardwalk at Hersheypark is opening. The weather will be nice, there's plenty to do, and I hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Obama seeks to move US beyond war years but keep drones, outlining a narrower terror threat: President Barack Obama sought Thursday to advance the U.S. beyond the unrelenting war effort of the past dozen years, defining a narrower terror threat from smaller networks and homegrown extremists rather than the grandiose plots of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida.

In a lengthy address at the National Defense University, Obama defended his controversial drone-strikes program as a linchpin of the U.S. response to the evolving dangers. He also argued that changing threats require changes to the nation's counterterrorism policies.

Obama implored Congress to close the much-maligned Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba and pledged to allow greater oversight of the drone program. But he plans to keep the most lethal efforts with the unmanned aircraft under the control of the CIA.

Muslim hard-liners ID suspect seen in video after British soldier killed in London: A man seen with bloody hands wielding a butcher knife after the killing of a British soldier on the streets of London was described as a convert to Islam who took part in demonstrations with a banned radical group, two Muslim hard-liners said Thursday.

Police raided houses in connection with the brazen slaying of the off-duty soldier, identified as Lee Rigby, of the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who served in Afghanistan. In addition to the two suspects who were hospitalized after being shot by police, authorities said they had arrested a man and a woman, both 29, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

Police would not say whether it appeared Rigby had been targeted specifically because of his military service. Although he was not in uniform at the time he was killed, he was said by witnesses to be wearing a T-shirt for a British veterans' charity.

How sweet it isn't: Scientists learn how some roaches evolve to avoid poison — in just 5 years: For decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong.

A killer product stopped working. Cockroach populations there kept rising. Mystified researchers tested and discarded theory after theory until they finally hit on the explanation: In a remarkably rapid display of evolution at work, many of the cockroaches had lost their sweet tooth, rejecting the corn syrup meant to attract them.

In as little as five years, the sugar-rejecting trait had become so widespread that the bait had been rendered useless.

"Cockroaches are highly adaptive, and they're doing pretty well in the arms race with us," said North Carolina State University entomologist Jules Silverman, discoverer of the glucose aversion in that Florida kitchen during a bait test.

The findings illustrate the evolutionary prowess that has helped make cockroaches so hard to stamp out that it is jokingly suggested they could survive nuclear war.

IRS replaces official who supervised agents involved in targeting tea party groups: Moving quickly to stem a raging controversy, the new acting head of the Internal Revenue Service started cleaning house Thursday by replacing the supervisor who oversaw agents involved in targeting tea party groups.

A day after she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, Lois Lerner was placed on administrative leave, according to congressional sources.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Lerner was asked to resign but refused, so she was placed on leave. An IRS spokeswoman said the agency could not comment on Lerner's status because it was a private personnel matter.

Danny Werfel, the agency's new acting commissioner, told IRS employees in an email that he had selected a new acting head of the division, staying within the IRS to find new leadership.

Ken Corbin, a 27-year IRS veteran, will be the new acting director of the agency's exempt organizations division. Corbin currently is a deputy director in the wage and investment division, where he oversees 17,000 workers responsible for processing 172 million individual and business tax returns, Werfel said.

Today is: Brother's Day, International Tiara Day, National Escargot Day

Today's highlight in history: On May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, was dedicated by President Chester Alan Arthur and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland.

Thought for today: "It is the weakness and danger of republics, that the vices as well as virtues of the people are represented in their legislation." — Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, American author (1830-1885).

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